Artist Lecture Jennifer Garza-Cuen

Jennifer
Garza-Cuen

I was able to attend Jennifer
Garza-Cuen’s lecture. She is a traveler
who photographs all the locations she visits.
She goes on to describe what she does as she feels it is what is most
important. +So far she has visited seven countries and four continents. According to statistics the average American
moves nine times, Garza-Cuen is above average in this regard. She was born in Seattle, Washington and her
love of travel first showed when she was gifted a globe as a child. An important question that she asked during
her lecture is what is home? What defines home? Is home naturally where we are
from or simply where we feel at home? I found
myself trying to answer that properly. Is my home here in Reno or back with my
parents in Las Vegas? I for the moment am unable to correctly say which one is
home.

She takes photographs everywhere
she goes as a form of documentation and as a way to remember each location she
visits and the history that it holds.
One of the first images that she showed us was titled Untitled-Winged
Girl Walking Olympia. She shows us a
photo of a very young looking girl in a white tank top and blue jeans wearing a
pair of wings and also barefoot. The
girl is walking down a road leading to nowhere since all she has on either side
of here is trees and brush. Garza-Cuen
makes the girl look incredibly tiny compared to the surroundings. I feel this
girl like Garza-Cuen, in the sense that doesn’t really know where she is going
or where she will end up, but either way she’s happy doing what she does. It becomes more of a narrative for the artist
in this way and not just a simple image, which I found enjoyable.

Her lecture continued as she showed us images
of run-down old buildings and vacant police stations. Yes one can argue that these rundown
buildings can also build a narrative, but at this point in time they’re just
empty buildings and nothing else. That’s
how they were presented to us and I found it a little jarring compared to what
she previously showed us. I understand
that these images are documentations of her travels, but they had less story to
tell for me. I don’t want to criticize
her ability to photograph because she’s a wonderful photographer and I
personally could never end up with an image like hers, but I wouldn’t consider
it art more like a documentation of architecture of a once thriving town. These
images don’t evoke emotion, they don’t make me try and look past the simple
subjects and can very easily be overlooked.
Overall though I did find her ideas of what defines a home interesting
and her personification of what she considers a home in her travels interesting
to say the least.